Once upon a time, a superstar emerged in the ‘60s, a man unlike any other in the long history of boxing. His name was Cassius Marcellus Clay, he was born on Jan. 17, 1942, in Louisville, KY., to lower-middle-class parents.
He was an angelic child, according to his sweet, church lady mother, Odessa. The youngster got involved in boxing because someone stole his bicycle. He wanted to administer a good thrashing when he caught up with the thief.
Clay swept through the amateur ranks and captured the public’s admiration and imagination by winning the Gold Medal at the 1960 Summer Olympics in Rome, exhibiting a flamboyance and style rarely seen in a boxer. A group of wealthy white businessmen formed the Louisville sponsoring group to underwrite the black boxer’s promising professional career. They hired the Dundee brothers to direct the boxing progress of the young, charismatic Olympic champion.
Angelo Dundee was a master of developing a fighter’s natural talent. He recognized that he had a phenom on his hands. Clay was a heavyweight who moved with the speed of a welterweight and possessed the ring smarts of a master boxer like Willie Pastrono. Angelo let Clay be Clay. He did not try to correct or expunge the young fighter’s mistakes; rather he smoothed them out so that the mistakes worked in Clay’s favor.
Clay defeated Charles ‘Sonny” Liston on Feb. 24, 1964 for the heavyweight championship of the world. He delighted his fans, proclaiming that “I am the greatest” and dubbing Liston “a big, ugly bear.” Liston did not come out for the seventh round, and for more than a decade, Clay also earned other monikers including “The Louisville Lip” and “The Mouth.”
In the following years Clay became a Muslim and changed his name to Muhammad Ali. In 1967 Ali refused induction into the Army, based on his opposition to the Vietnam War. This led to the loss of his title, his suspension from boxing until 1970 and a five-year prison sentence, which was overturned.
Ali fought a tune-up with Jerry Quarry in 1970, then came the first Ali-Joe Frazier in 1971, dubbed “The fight of the century.” Frazier, then the world champion, won a 15-round decision in New York. Observers admired Ali, even though he had lost the decision, because it was a superb contest of wills, despite a 3½-year layoff.
Next came “The Thrilla in Manila” on Oct. 1, 1975, in which Ali defeated Frazier in what many people called one of the greatest fights ever seen. Trainer Eddie Futch, Frazier’s corner man in Manila, observed, “Ali takes his mistakes, shows them to you, then beats you with them.”
One of the things that saved Ali was that as his career went on; he reinvented himself. He displayed diversity by changing his style to what suited the style of the man in front of him. Like Cus D’Amato used to say, “In the first part of Ali’s career, the only time you touched Ali is when the referee made you touch gloves before the bout started.”
Later in his career he would fight an entire bout against Ken Norton with a broken jaw, and no one would be surprised. After all, this man had faced down an enraged killer (Sonny Liston) that he could not even see clearly (Round 5) and had survived the bout of blindness.
Ali became the second man in ring history to regain the heavyweight championship of the world, and the first to regain it a third time. Ali outfought, outlasted, and outwitted George Foreman in a classic upset. (October 30, 1974)
Even more than Joe Louis, Ali was a world Champion, a boxer who was the most famous face in the world. He crystallized this image on October 30, 1974, in Kinshasa, Zaire, Africa, when he regained his title from Foreman.
Despite an onset of Parkinson’s Disease, the world applauded as he lit the Olympic flame to officially start the 1996 Atlanta games.
Happy 69th Birthday, Champ! Happy Birthday, Muhammad Ali! Happy Birthday, Our Brother! And thanks for the memories.
—Ali Rasheed Muhammad was a training partner with numerous boxers, including Archie Moore, Marthy Monroe, Ken Norton and Hedgemon Lewis.
San Quentin’s Ramadan Experience Gets Support
The Muslim community at San Quentin has expressed its thanks to Allahu Ta’ala, whose aid, guidance and grace were instrumental in making this year’s Ramadan a humble reality. Ramadan is the month of fasting, one of the five pillars of Al-Islam, and is obligatory for every Muslim.
Muslims not only abstain from food, drink and sexual intercourse from dawn to dusk, but also from evil deeds and desires. Every act of worship performed during the month of Ramadan adds award. It is therefore the season of devotional rituals and self-restraint as well as goodwill and benevolence.
At San Quentin classes were given by the Muslim chaplain, Brother Hossain, during the evenings in Arabic learning and a collection of aHadith (the traditions of Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), on the significance of charity in deeds, and good manners toward each other and toward all of humanity.
Muslims expressed their appreciation to the brothers who were especially helpful in the preparation of meals and the other accommodations for a peaceful experience. They thanked and acknowledged the work and help from the Muslim chaplain for the introduction of Sheik Nawáz, who is learned in the Qur’an, aHadith, Fiqh and Shariah. Sheik Nawáz, originally from Pakistan, visited from South Africa, where he has been living for several years.
He shared gifts of wisdom that were truly inspiring, relating the story of an 80-year-old woman that memorized the Holy Qur’an. He noted that her mind-set and/or belief at such an age was phenomenal.
A Room With a View of Death Row
Where I lie there is despair, but above what demons haunt those who dwell there. As a Lifer who resides in north block, I often wonder about the plight of those condemned men who live on the sixth floor A section. known as North Seg. (North Segregation) a part of California’s death row.
Albert Camus once wrote, “What then is capital punishment but the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal’s deed, however calculated it may be, can be compared.”
America’s death row residents are men and women who walk the razor’s edge between half-life and certain death. These are America’s condemned who bear a stigma far worse than “prisoner.” Life there oscillates between the banal and the bizarre.
Unlike other prisoners, condemned prisoners are not “doing time.” Freedom does not shine at the end of the tunnel. Rather, the end of the tunnel brings extinction. Thus, for many here, there is no hope.
All death rows’ share a central goal: “Human storage” in an austere world in which condemned prisoners are treated as bodies kept alive to be killed.
To such men and women the actual execution is a fait accompli, a formality already accomplished in spirit. The state concludes its premeditated drama by putting the “dead” to death a second time.
To do justice for self, one must consistently battle the harsh reality that this is it and what can I do for the future, a day not yet dawned? Despair not of the “Mercy.”